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Finnish Teenager Steals €250,000 From Maltese Online Casino

An online casino based in Malta was robbed a whopping amount of €250,000 by a tech-savvy Finnish teenager. His parents are also in hot water for sharing in on his ill-gotten wealth.

On Tuesday, YLE, a media outlet in Finland, reported the teen's case as that of aggravated fraud currently going on its way through the Häme District Court. The teen is a resident of the town of Forssa who apparently discovered a glitch in the software of an unnamed Malta-based online casino.

According to the news outlet, the teen, described to be "now about 18 years old", discovered that in the casino software he was able to cancel other customers' pending withdrawal requests and at the same time have the money transferred to an online wallet rather than the customers' designated bank accounts.

The tech-savvy teen was able to allegedly make a total of 147 withdrawal requests in a span of just one month, which equaled to a loss of €250,000 for the unnamed gaming operator, but things are going to turn around after a site employee found out about the theft in July 2017.

Prosecutors have claimed that the teen's parents were deemed accomplices to their son's crime, due to the fact that the father was given €14,000 on his bank account, while the mother's account had €2,300 of the ill-gotten money. It looks like the mother has gotten the shorter end of the stick in this case, but prosecutors allege that she also has in possession of a motorcycle worth €5,000 that was bought using the stolen money.

Whatever was his age at the time the online robbery was committed, prosecutors are pushing for the now legally-aged teen to serve 20 months in jail.

Prosecutors have also charged the father with aggravated money laundering, for which they are seeking a 5-month suspended sentence. As for the mother who also faces money laundering charges, she was facing a ‘more lenient suspended sentence'.

The Central Häme District Court is expected to deliver its ruling on the case on September 3rd.

One thing had me wandered that a teenager tech savy as this one - how come not figure out a way where he could use a throwaway 'dummy' account to make the money dissapear from the site, from skrill etc. without traces that would lead to him. Since the whole thing seems fairly straightforward I could imagine he messed up in the first place by using his real credentials to register at the online casino.

Yes very interesting situation, it show how it is not safe with money in online casino. But it is same situations to online banking and shops, so some people who know technology can steal big money and become very rich

It seems a bit suspicious, that for a month the security system of the platform did not realize what is happening if all the money went to the same electronic purse, apparently the young man made the mistake of taking the money to an account of a relative and that's why it was discovered, let's wait for the end of the case to see what happens.

I did never had trust in an online casino only site, that is why I never deposited money there and the only time was I won $75 with a no deposit bonus and completed the wagering req. and had to make a min deposit to be able to cash out... that's all.

Suspended? Why suspended. Tbroug them all in jail, serving some time accordinglyAnd more to his parents, since they are the ones that should have stopped him in thefirst place, and yet they did not only let him be, but they got money from it also.

I do not think it is necessary for this young man to go into prison for 20 months. Was minor in 2017 and deserve a suspended sentence, because did not hurt anyone. He made a mistake when he redirected customer withdrawals to his online wallet, and now must to pay the damages, but punishment with jail it's too hard in my opinion.

That case indicate security system of the casino isn't good. Very strange...It's mean the boy could order payment from the casino account ( ????? ) if yes why he had to cancel payment to player instead of stole from casino's account directly ? Anyone can explain this, I don't understand .

Actually he did not steal from the casino, but from its customers, as they were trying to make a withdrawal. At some joints the players would now have the problem of getting their money back, as the casino could claim to have made the payment.

young hackers are certainly a threat to many Internet sites ... and therefore for security you should also attract young hackers .... of course with a teenager it's difficult to agree but as it seems to me this is the only option to combat this .... maybe I'm not right .. . perhaps

ok not such a major coup to be hones, only a quarter of a million and high risk of being caught, which ended exactly as such. on the other hand it's not like he kicked someone in the head and stole their wallet, this was just using a loophole the site left, so not sure if he should be judged like a thief.

well cant believe that he could do something like this for so long time and that he could cancel all of this withdrawal requests and nobody to ask after 5 or 10 of them how this could happen!if all of this players ask on live support where is money and that they didnt cancel anything,then they must ask themselves whats going on!